Story
Gage walked through the New Hope hospital parking lot, the streetlamps shining puddles of light wetly up from the asphalt. The air smelled of old exhaust and wet dog - a recent thunderstom from earlier that night. The front doors of the hospital beckoned with the fluorescent lights inside; the waiting room was suspiciously empty tonight. Even for a shit small town like this one, usually the waiting room had a tenant or two at this hour. The clock above Melody's head read 11:52 pm; the young receptionist didn't even look up from her phone as he trudged in.
"Hey Gage." She chimed in a hollow way, her mind elsewhere.
"Morning." He joked, not smiling, pushing his way through the reception area and making the trek all the way to the back of the building. Nurses huddled around nursing stations as he passed, drinking from steaming mugs that contained no sugar or cream. Something about this place made black coffee taste better.
Finally, he opened the double doors that lead into the Ready station. Four people were waiting, two of them clocking off and his ride partner ready to clock on. They were making small talk, something that Gage purposely timed to ignore. The clock struck midnight, meaning the first crew was ready to leave Gage and Adam there for the night.
"Good luck." The other EMT said with an exhausted tinge to his voice. Gage nodded before climbing into the back of the rig, doing the check that began every shift.
Everything was in place, but a freshly detailed floor meant there must have been a lot of blood on the last shift. Enough to take two scrubdowns? Well, maybe blood. Could be shit. One of the oxygen tanks needed to be topped off, but otherwise, she was full of gas. Other supplies were strapped into their shelves, fully stocked. Adam must have been doing a walkthrough before his shift started - because the sooner the walk is done, the sooner they can catch a nap.
Gage tossed and turned in his cot, knowing that it wouldn't be long before his sleep got interrupted by that dammed siren from his radio. Sure enough, just around 5 am the call came in - and a call it was.
The highway heading out of town, just recently constructed, caused more accidents than it prevented. Most of the time, it was the offramp that caused the most grief; big city drivers who accidentally took the wrong exit and didn't want to spend the 15 extra minutes it took to find a way out of Podunk USA. But not this morning; a teen driver taking his older brother's truck out for a joy ride had smashed into the back of a car. Two police officers were already administering a sobriety test - the kid was failing - and the passenger side of his truck looked totaled.
The car was worse for wear as a dazed woman with whiplash lolled around the front seat. She pointed at the officers but couldn't form words, clearly in shock. Cries were erupting from the back as another officer tried to calm one of the children down. Gage's heart leapt at the sound of children crying, no matter how many years he had prepared. The front end of the car had turned to face the truck that had hit it, and the truck had barreled into the driver's side. Gage saw quickly that he'd have to wait for a fire truck to get there before they could cut the woman out.
Two children were pinned in the back seat, one of them unconscious and the other crying so hard she couldn't catch her breath. The back seat had crushed both of them against the back of the driver's seats, folded like an accordion. Gage ran around to the other side of the car, ripping the door open as far as it could go, squeezing his body inside as far as he could manage. The fit was so small, he couldn't breath himself as he tried to take inventory of what had happened. The little girl who was still conscious on the passenger's side of the car, the side with the least damage, had a clearly broken leg. She jumped around when Gage made his way toward her, something she absolutely couldn't do. He reasoned with her, telling her not to move as he snapped popped her head through a doughnut shaped brace meant to stabilize her spine. Adam was doing the same for the mother from the front passenger seat next to him. She clearly had spinal damage from the impact.
They were going to need more ambulances. Gage insisted on taking the mother while another crew took her children, both of them racing away from the scene with sirens blaring. And this was just the first call of the day - a 16 hour shift remained. He could feel his ears ringing from the adrenaline and anguish even as he waited in his rig for a call that night, unable to sleep for what he saw when he closed his eyes.
Gage pulled into the parking lot of his apartment complex around one in the morning the next day. He had a plastic bag next to him packed with bloody scrubs and shoes that had been vomited in. He always had at least two spare sets of clothes somewhere in that car - he practically lived in it. Up 3 flights of stairs he went, carrying his broken body up just one more foot with every step. He had his keys ready in his fingers when he approached his door, and it took all of his strength just to throw the disgusting bag in a pile on top of other disgusting bags before collapsing in the bed. Tomorrow was laundry day.
Gage sank into his bed, his jaw resting against his pillow uncomfortably. In his pocket, a wrapped paper bag held that day's findings, his treasures. Blindly, he reached to the left of the bed to pull out the drawer of his bedside table to deposit the drugs. Fentanyl and Morphine, two vial each, was a big haul for him. That car accident allowed him to over-quote the dosage he had given the patient, the excess of which he pocketed.
The sights and sounds of the day danced before his eyes as he fished for his phone charger on the other side of the bed. One of the biggest perks of being single meant that a whole half of the bed was designated to the important things in life: a laptop for netflix and porn, a remote control, and his phone. He left his arms outstretched after he had plugged it in, one arm reaching for his stash and his other arm reaching for his electronics - spread out like a skydiver.
As exhausted as he was, his mind raced. He knew better now than to check up on the family from that morning, or the boy who had hit them. He knew better than to care enough to remember their names, but he did: and he remembered the fancy Rolex that the intoxicated boy had been wearing while he demanded to be taken to the hospital for his "injuries". That boy wouldn't now or ever face punishment for what he did.
Gage's body grew uncomfortable, making him toss for a moment before the stress overcame him. He ripped open his drawer once more, fishing out a syringe and the half-empty bottle of morphine he had scored last week.
It wouldn't help him sleep, but if he were going to be awake, he might as well not feel anything anymore. The thoughts slipped away as he turned his attention to more pleasurable things, staring ahead at the television. A text came through at around 8 that morning, one of his 9-5 office buddies probably on the way to work.
"Hey, Gage, how's it been? Guess what? Mariah's in town!"
Gage's heart skipped a beat as he re-read the message.
"What? Are you for real? When did she get in?"
By the time the next text message made it's way in, Gage was holding his phone close, waiting for that response.
"Yeah man, she moved back in with her folks. She looks like hell, don't think you'd still be chasing that ass after you see her."
He was joking. Of course he was joking. Mariah was the only girl for him, the one that got away. No amount of drunken hookups or tinder dates could get her off his mind. And Chase! His best friend had run off with the girl of his dreams, but after all these years he was ready to put that behind him.
"I'll be the judge of that." he replied before an overwhelming exhaustion flooded over him. It'd been almost 2 days since he'd slept, and the morphine had left his system. The last thing on his mind was the girl he had so longed for all during high school, the girl he had chased relentlessly despite her running off with the friend he missed the most. Tomorrow was his day off, and nothing in the world could keep him away from Chase and the woman he swore that he'd take from him.
